


Ice-Veins

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Abusive Parents, Backstory, Cannibalism, Child Abandonment, F/M, Multiple Dovahkiin | Dragonborn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-02-15 17:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18674629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: She'd done what he asked when she'd joined - her criminal background remained well away from her duties as a Stormcloak. But she knew what she was, and it wasn't going to change.Wounded animals abandoned once to the cold death of winter once can't be taught to lie in the snow and die.





	Ice-Veins

**Author's Note:**

> Cretaeia (Nord | Stormcloaks) - Vilkas  
> Vaeyarasite (Redguard | Thieves Guild) - Veezara  
> Serana (Imperial | Companions)  
> Chloe and Claire (Imperial | Companions)  
> Aedea (Khajiit | Companions) - Farkas  
> Andromache (Nord | Dark Brotherhood) - Ulfric

"Who are you?"

"Andromache."

Recognition flashed through his eyes, as she knew it would. She wasn't surprised her infamy had remained. Likely, being as new as he appeared, he thought she was a story. 

"Captain, what do we do with her? She's not on the list."

The Captain stared her down and with a cruel twist of her lips, turned away. "She goes up with the others."

Ralof watched her walk up over his shoulder and she could tell he wasn't a former soldier - just a farm boy with a cause and a dream. 

She stared at the executioner. The other women around her - a tanned Nord, a black-furred Khajiit, a naive looking Redguard and three Imperials, two of whom appeared to be twins - shifted with more nerves. The Khajiit's ears were plastered back into her black hair, only the white marks on her face giving away her worried expression. 

But this was the nature of Skyrim - beautiful, brief and harsh. There were also plenty worse ways to die. 

* * *

She'd never been impressive. No stunning looks, childhood charm or evident natural talent. If anything, her clumsy hands and ghostly pale skin made her a target of mockery by other children and a disappointment to her parents. 

When she'd been introduced to Torygg, she'd fumbled through the introductions and tripped on her dress as she turned away. But in Solitude, she was able to hide in the bushes, blend into the brickwork and hide her shame. Mid-tier nobility meant their house was just large enough that she hardly ever seen her parents, and she knew which rooms contained the expensive imported glass she would likely break. 

The visit to Riften just after she'd turned eight was what truly changed her world. 

"This is the little beast?" Maven Black-Briar, a friend of her mother's, grabbed her face like a horse and twisted it back and forth. "Solid bone structure, pretty eyes and decent hair. Pale, though, and too slender to be attractive. She's evidently unsure of herself and too bashful to be prettily coy."

"I know." Her mother sighed. "Whatever am I do to with her?"

"Try again." Maven said simply. "She's a piss-poor excuse for a Whitefire and you know it."

"I think we will."

On the journey home, halfway between Riften and Windhelm, they left her behind. 

The winter chill was bitter and tore through her clothes. She'd lost sight of her parents two days ago and the hunger was all-consuming. She'd always been slight to begin with - skin and bones, really - and that left her little to fight the starvation of winter back with. 

A week alone saw a small pack of wolves wandering the mountainside. She spotted them before they did her, and she began to follow them. The snowberries she'd managed to find were insubstantial at best. She followed them through a hunt, then cautiously snuck up after they'd left to tear strips from the carcass. There wasn't much, but enough that she felt content. 

She found another pack of wolves two days later, but they didn't hunt an elk or some fish. They killed bandits. 

She was hovering over the new corpse. She didn't want to, but there was no guarantee what else the wolves would find. They could go longer on less than she could. The bandits would freeze if she didn't make up her mind soon. 

She took the steel dagger in shaking hands and cut open one of the larger wounds left by the wolves. His flesh was steaming the freezing air. Forcing back vomit, she cut him into strips and brought the still-warm flesh to her lips. 

She ate a decent portion of his chest before she felt sick. She forced it down, plundering their belongings instead. She dressed in their furs, stole their weapons took what meagre rations wouldn't spoil in a satchel. 

She left the encampment and headed south, the spring following her. 

She practised with the bow and daggers and got better at firing longer and farther. She was haunted by his face, the man she'd eaten, and was intent on not having to do so ever again. 

In the seven years that followed, she broke that intent with less and less guilt. She had to eat, and animals and plants were not always available. But people were. It wasn't regularly, only when the chill of winter swept over the lands. She'd wandered the plains out to Rorikstead, still pale as the dead and sunken in wild hunger, when she happened across a recruitment envoy for the Imperial army. 

She walked up to them, gaunt and unclean. "Do you get fed?"

The recruiter blinked. "Well, yes."

"What do I have to do to join?"

"Sign up and show some skill with a weapon."

She tapped her bow. "I'm a good hunter."

"Name, race and age."

"Andromache, Nord, fifteen."

The recruiter looked at her oddly. "Fifteen? Out in the wild?"

"I have no family."

"Fair enough." He placated. "Stay here overnight. We set out in the morning for the training camp."

She nodded, going where he directed her. She didn't speak to the other recruits - farmhands and daydreamers who'd never left this humble village. 

She sat down against a rock and fell asleep. 

* * *

Outside of Helgen with the other women and Ralof, she hung back, eyeing their surroundings on the walk to Riverwood. 

She decided to go with them to Whiterun. After all, it had been some time since she'd been in Skyrim. Perhaps she would even find a fresh start there. 

"Hey."

She turned to Ralof, the man more than a little sheepish. 

"When you said you name, back in Helgen. They all seemed to know you."

"It was another life."

He fumbled over himself - too innocent to be talking with someone like her. "The Stormcloaks could put that scary reputation to good use."

"I'll consider it." 

He broke into a blinding smile. "Thank you, Andromache."

She nodded and turned away, following the others up the road. 

In another life, indeed.

* * *

Melanie was the first to approach her. A young Imperial woman, from a town not far from their training camp in Cyrodiil. She was short, slight, and her skin and hair shared a soft brown colour. Her eyes were green, and too compassionate. 

"You're from Skyrim, right?"

"Yes."

Melanie shuffled, then handed over the bread and cooked salmon she'd come with. "I thought you might be hungry."

She took it, still staring intensely at the Imperial. She had on a warpaint, a pastel shade of teal, that splashed out about her eyes. 

"I don't know anyone here and many don't want to talk to me because they think I'm weak."

"You're not weak." She replied, face still set coldly. "You're unpractised."

"Oh. Well, thank you?"

She went back to eating. That's why she came. They gave food. 

"I was hoping, since everyone's afraid to talk to you and no one wants to talk to me that we could pair up when it comes time for training. Sparring partners."

"I accept."

Melanie broke into a bright smile, bobbing up and down a little in girlish mirth. It had been some time since she was close enough to it to have the inclination of smiling back.

"What's your name? I'm Melanie."

"Andromache."

"That's a long name for a Nord." Melanie shrugged, still beaming. "Suits you, though."

 

 | | | 

 

It wasn't long before they were friends. With Melanie's persistence in the face of silence and her own commitment to seeing Melanie's training through, they were practically inseparable. 

"You two make a good forward pair." Their captain decided. "An archer and a rearguard."

That was how their careers as Imperial soldiers began. With their new unit of forward soldiers, they were sent to the front lines in Cyrodiil. 

Over their tenure of years, she taught Melanie how to slit throats, steal supplies and shrug off magic. She introduced her to eclectic herb combinations for highly specific potions and poisons. Melanie became friends with their company and dragged Andromache into the revels of successes and the murky disquiet of failures. 

That's where they met Briyan, another Imperial, who was part of their callback company. 

Andromache left little work for the following squad to finish - she often infiltrated bases she was only supposed to spy on, or spied on bases from within. She was one of their greatest assets in sabotage and espionage, with Melanie as her somewhat close second. 

"One day, we'll be the commanders at this rate." Melanie smiled, still unflappable cheerful even after all that time. Over a decade in service to the Empire in a losing war, and she still managed to be just as bright and optimistic as the first day in training. 

Briyan became their squad captain, and his once-affiable personality took a turn for the worse. 

"He likes you." A Breton named Dess teased. 

"Which one?" Melanie asked, because Andromache didn't care.

"You, sweet thing." Dess winked. Melanie flushed. 

"Be careful. My guard dog is right here." Melanie nudged her in good humour and she snorted, amused. All the men in this unit knew that hurting Melanie intentionally or messing with her meant a harsh punishment, but Dess had been Melanie's companion since training.

Sweet on each other from the start, though most assumed she was with Andromache, not Dess. 

Briyan didn't take kindly to her ignoring his attentions. 

 

 | | | 

 

"Have you seen Melanie?"

Dess looked up from setting up camp for the incoming battalion. "Can't say that I have. Have you not?"

"I was scouting last night." They all knew that meant she'd walked into the forest without orders and several Aldmeri sentries from the opposing camp would be missing in the modecIng. Not an uncommon trend, and one that frequently cemented results. 

"Briyan was talking to her last night. That's last I saw of her."

She wandered the camp until she found Melanie's tent, set up lose to Briyan's. It was empty. She noticed too, however, that not only was the Captain missing, but many of his closest friends in the unit. 

She followed the tracks into the wood, opposite from the incoming reinforcements, but not towards the front line either. 

She found a small encampment with a burned out fire, but only one tent. She snuck in, bypassing the missing soldiers sleeping in bedrolls, and found Melanie's desecrated corpse. 

Pinned to the earth by a knife through her hands, she looked like she'd struggled against unwanted hands most of the night until they got overzealous and throttled her. Her body was stiff, cold and naked; caked in substance that she didn't want to address. 

She left the tent and woke up Briyan, who startled into action at the sight of her face. 

"Andromache!"

Many of the other men startled awake too. She took stock of their faces. 

"Run." She snarled, and they did.

 

 | | | 

 

Rumour swirled for a month about what happened to Melanie and Andromache. 

"Dess."

He woke to find Andromache crouched next to his bedroll. She had on Melanie's war paint, steeped in cold blue tones that made her pale skin look deathly and the gleam of her icy eyes glacier-cold. 

"Andromache? What the hell happened to you? Where's Melanie?"

"Melanie was killed." She replied, voice toneless. "I buried her and went through her things. She wanted to give these to you."

He took the necklace, rings and sword in shock, reeling. "She's gone?"

"Yes. I am going to avenge her."

"Who killed her? The Thalmor?"

She shook her head and that vacancy filled with rage. "They'll wish it had of been."

"Andromache, please-"

"No. You must not know." Andromache pushed him back down. "You can't be implicated."

"Implicated?"

"I will avenge her." She repeated, then disappeared out of the tent. He rushed out after her, but she was the best spy in the Imperial army. She was already gone. 

Then a shriek went up on the other side of the camp. 

 

 | | | 

 

Every few days, a soldier would wake up in their tent facing the decapitated head of the soldier killed a few days prior. They would shriek and flee the tent, unable to guess who'd done something so heinous. 

Last night, the soldier who was to lose his head woke up before the first stroke. 

"No, Andromache, I-!" Then silence. 

The sentries came running, but his head was already gone. On this man, the sentry noticed something odd. His chest had been torn open, and his heart was missing. 

With each jumpy man, they slept lightly enough that not even her stealth could cloak her murders. Her name became their death cries, and the very sound of it struck the other soldiers into paralysed fear. Each one lost their head and their hearts. 

Briyan was the last to receive a head. 

He stayed awake all day and night, taking potions to keep his alertness. 

"She won't get me in the middle of the night like a coward." Briyan hissed, more and more unstable as time progressed. "You won't get me! Do you hear me, Andromache?! You won't get me!"

In the waning light of dusk, walking back to his tent with few soldiers still idling and sentries going to exchange watches, the hair on the back of his neck stood up right before a hand clamped over his mouth. 

"Won't I?" She murmured into his ear before sticking a dagger in his belly and wrenching it upwards, spilling his innards. She let him scream then, when the damage was done, and walked out of the tent. 

Only Dess seen her leave, cold and harsh like the land that bore her - beautiful, dangerous and savage. 

"They'll hunt you for this your entire life. Twelve good soldiers, horrifically murdered." He said to her. 

"Yes, they will." She agreed. 

He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. "Thank you."

She nodded, stepped away, and walked into the brush, disappearing in the evening darkness like a phantom. 

Briyan spent the remaining hours it took for him to die cursing her name. 

* * *

"Hey, no need to look so sour."

She glanced over at the Redguard, narrowing her eyes. These other women heading to Whiterun didn't know her, not beyond a name and an attempted beheading. 

"I'm Vaeyrasite."

"Andromache."

"Introductions?" The Khajiit said, soft and polite. "I'm Aedea."

"Cretaeia." The other Nord replied. 

"Chloe. This is my twin, Claire." The two sisters waved. 

"Serana." The final Imperial piped up. 

She nodded only because she knew they were waiting on a response. It made Vaeyrasite smile. 

"Where do you plan to go after we make it to Whiterun?" Vaeyrasite asked, evidently nosy. 

"East, into the wild." She answered. 

"That is wholly unspecific." 

She shrugged. She really had no better plan. 

"I'm going to Windhelm." Cretaeia said. "After what those Imperial bastards did, I'm not standing by any more."

"I was drafted into the Legion." Chloe said. "But I don't want in if this is how they treat all new recruits."

"I hear there's a Thieves Guild in Riften." Vaeyrasite nudged and whispered, as though it was something special. "I was thinking there. Young and bored, you know?"

The look of her worn clothes and gaunt frame said she actually meant _poor and hungry_. She nodded again to close the topic."

"I guess we'll just have to see what awaits us." Serena said. 

Aedea fell back with them, walking on Vaeyrasite's other side. "I suppose so."

 

 | | | 

 

Most of their small pack was distracted by the group slaying the giant as they approached. Andromache, however, carried onward. Vaeyrasite followed, chatting about the new city and the wild harshness of Skyrim. 

She said nothing in reply the whole hike to Dragonreach, spoke only perfunctorally to the Jarl, accepted the mission from Farengar, then took her leave. 

"Bleak Falls Barrow, huh?" Vaeyrasite chattered. "Sounds cool. Didn't Ralf say the place was haunted or something?"

"Where are we going?" Cretaeia, followed by the three Imperials, met them by the gate. 

"Back to Riverwood." She said shortly and walked past them, seeing herself out of the city. They hurried after her, but she had little to no use for them. She'd sold what she didn't need in Riverwood for a decent bow and quiver of arrows. She would clear the Barrow, retrieve the Stone, and be done with the business. 

 

 | | | 

 

She had forgotten what it was like to have a rearguard. It had been nearly six years since she'd had companions of any sort. She'd spent much of that time wandering Cyrodiil, Elswyr and Hammerfell. It was . . . nice, she decided, to have someone she could trust to kill things behind her. A welcome change. 

"See? We're not all bad." Vaeyrasite announced brightly. 

Aedea's ears were plastered to her head. "There's more trouble ahead. Draugr?"

"Likely." Cretaeia answered. The Nord was exactly as she imagined she would be - hardy and handy with a sword, patriotic and smart. The quintessential rebel.

They secured the Dragonstone, but the wall glowed and she felt something rush to her, speaking a word in her mind. 

 _Fus_. Force. 

"Did anyone else feel that?" Aedea whispered, sounding more fearful by the moment. Her tail flicked in nervous irritation. 

"Yes." Chloe confirmed. 

She didn't answer. She simply took the stone, exited the Barrow, and began a silent trek back to Whiterun. 

"Are you always like this?" Vaeyrasite sighed. 

"Yes."

"Would it also break your heart to make conversation?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Well then."

 


End file.
